James Devon, in my physics class, wondering aloud why, if lightning hits the surface of the planet many times per second, every second, no one has yet found a way to harness all that energy. Robin McLoughlin, our physics teacher, not answering the question: “Keep having ideas. When I was your age I was full of them. And then they started to dry up, and I grew up. Keep having ideas.”

* * * * *

Stephen Macartney performing in class, retuning the guitar to do so. I didn’t know you were allowed to do that. There are new notes.

* * * * *

A cassette tape wearing thin, Dark Side of the Moon cycling through tenuous repetitions into faded oblivion (the music, somehow, remains). Yetis under London. Webs across the Underground. Later there will be strange dreams that never end.

* * * * *

Cicero: “A praetorian guard of pansies.” I wonder who put alliteration to this end.

* * * * *

“Don’t take the car out tonight Gavin.” “Why not?” “It’s green.” This world is not appropriate.

* * * * *

I move the rook and win. My father smiles. I do not.

* * * * *

He thinks no one is looking and he fills his breast pocket with chunks of watermelon. The juice immediately stains his shirt. The galley staff affect not to notice. He leaves a few minutes later. There is not enough watermelon for everyone. We had no more to give.

* * * * *

A gift of prawns from the Faroe Islands celebrate their birthday. There is cake.

* * * * *

The threads come together. The end of the novel finally comes into focus. In a few more hours it will be done and I will, in some sense, have lost a friend.

* * * * *

The country is stone and water and dark, silent forest. I do not know where the birds have gone. Or the butterflies.

* * * * *

Fully up to date - an L1 on a mixed goods.

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About Gavin

I am a 32-year-old PhD student in Aberdeen, Scotland. I work in QC at an e-learning company. I'm originally Northern Irish, though I've lived here in Aberdeen for several years. I am, essentially, somebody who is very normal, yet to whom very strange things keep happening...